Much like the rules of Baccarat, the gaming industry in Macau seems to revolve around a series of childishly simple numbers: huge, pulse-raising figures which feel just as enticing as the gilt-edged casinos themselves.

There is the 54 per cent gross revenue growth chalked up the first half of this year and the 30-odd million visitors expected to churn through Macau’s shabby ferry terminal by the end of December. There are the 100 million Chinese mainlanders who live within a three-hour drive of the place and know exactly the odds of rolling a nine in Sic Bo.

There is the fact that Steve Wynn’s Macau casino and hotel makes around five times the quarterly operating income as his Las Vegas flagship, but with less than a quarter of the hotel rooms. In one corner of that property is a branch of Louis Vuitton that rakes in more money than any other of the brand’s concessions in the world.

And helping these numbers tell their story is the visual evidence that so luridly assaults the Macau skyline: the colossal Venetian, the swish MGM Grand and the impeccably vulgar Grand Lisboa are all brand new, yet the eye is drawn to the half-completed handful of other mega-projects whose vast, sparkly contribution to the scene will start sometime next year. Even Macau’s social problems scream of the casinos' roaring growth: an entire generation of students are dropping out of their state-funded university places to become dealers and croupiers.

But towering over all of this is the one number on which billions of dollars hinge: 1.4. That’s the number of nights, on average, that visitors stay in Macau. One theory is that for Macau to progress in the long run, the number needs to be more like 3.5. Getting more Chinese men to gamble more money is not the challenge. Persuading them to head upstairs to bed or bring their families or take in a show is the problem. The Chinese houses are less exposed to this difficulty; the biggest US investments – particularly by Las Vegas Sands – are.

There may be crude surface overlaps with Vegas but, everything from the ambitions of the clientele to the relative popularity of the games themselves, is absolutely different in Macau. Vegas makes around 80 per cent of its revenues from everything other than gaming. Macau is the mirror opposite. Unlike Vegas, 70 per cent of Macau’s revenues are generated by VIP customers – high rollers, who are brought into the casinos by so-called junket operators, concentrate on their gaming and then head home. It is in the nature of these junket operators, many probably gang-related, that some uncomfortable questions lie. For investors, and for the highly regulated American operators, the “cleaner” antidote to that situation would be to give Macau an earnings profile somewhat closer to that of Vegas – by encouraging a vast mass market to develop and to wean the casino’s earnings off the potentially naughty junket operators.

But why bother forcing that difficult and unwanted transformation? Recession is heading for the US, and discretionary spending is going to be hurt badly. A global investor who wants purer exposure to gaming would logically be far better off backing Macau.

The answer probably lies in Beijing, and the extent to which all the numbers and ratios currently defining Macau can much longer remain acceptable. The not-so-hidden hand of Beijing has begun to rein in Macau’s ability to keep its purely gaming-centric growth story on track, and investors know how quickly the Party can shut down a party.

But, for the time being, Macau is about hardcore gaming, and the stocks that represent it are relatively cheap. The mass market will come eventually, but for the moment there is an easy-to-read story for investors. Stocks in the Macau casinos, after all, represent a bet on an extraordinarily pure monetisation of East Asian culture: a spiritual affinity for numbers and the need to affirm that love by laying wads of cash on green baize tables.

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